The Rainbow Bridge shattered!
The massive energy transmission was suddenly cut off. The unstable energy immediately triggered a huge explosion.
Towering waves surged across Asgard's Cosmic Sea, swallowing the Rainbow Control Room. Then the seawater fell away, continuing to vanish into the void.
The violent explosion destroyed the Rainbow Control Room. The spherical device collapsed onto the ground, never to spin again.
Thor and Loki were hurled high into the air by the world-destroying force. Apocalypse had it even worse. He could not fly to begin with, and now he was falling into the void beneath the Cosmic Sea, with nothing to push off from.
Not to mention the powerful impact of the blast wave.
The three of them accelerated as they plummeted toward the Cosmic Sea...
From afar, Apocalypse saw Sif charging toward the three of them. Unfortunately, the blast wave was still spreading. After only a few steps, she was forced back by the shockwave.
Odin, the Allfather, who had been resting in the palace, heard the explosion. His eyes suddenly flew open, and he vanished from his sleep chamber, transforming into a streak of divine light as he flew toward the Bifrost.
Seeing the three from afar, Odin grabbed two of them, one in each hand, and pulled them back.
The one left behind was Loki!
Loki could not believe it. His father had actually chosen not to save him, instead saving that Earthling?!
His eyes filled with unwillingness, rage, resentment, and despair as he watched Odin. Slowly, he fell into the void and finally vanished.
Asgard's Cosmic Sea never ceased, day or night.
No one knew where its waters came from or where they went.
Apocalypse did not know what lay beneath the Cosmic Sea, but judging by the reactions of Odin, Thor, Loki, and the others, it could not be anything good. It might even be deadly.
In the original plot, Odin had grabbed both Thor and Loki at the same time.
Even in that situation, Loki had not forgotten to argue with the Allfather. In the end, unable to bear it any longer, he chose to let go and fell into the void.
Then, somehow, he hooked up with Thanos and returned to Earth to cause trouble again.
But now, it was not Loki who chose to let go. It was the Allfather who had abandoned him.
One could only imagine how deep the resentment in his heart would be!
The Allfather pulled Apocalypse and Thor back up, let out a sigh, and flew back to the palace.
Thor remained silent for a long time, staring blankly in the direction where Loki had disappeared.
"Father chose to save me. I don't know what will happen to Loki..." Thor said, sounding guilty and pained.
"Don't worry. Loki's life is tougher than you think. I guarantee you, he's still alive!"
"Really?"
Apocalypse nodded firmly.
That gave Thor considerable comfort, and his mood improved greatly.
After a while, Thor finally said, "Tang, my good brother, you may have caused a huge disaster just now."
After a brief explanation, Apocalypse finally understood why Thor had smashed the Rainbow Divine Needle harder and harder the more he pushed it.
He could only blame himself for having spent too long as an Earthling, lacking even basic cosmic knowledge.
Still, the universe was so vast. It was not certain he had hit a planet. Even if he had hit one, it might not have been a life-bearing planet. Even if it was, there might not have been intelligent life on it...
Apocalypse could only comfort himself that way.
The two men stood by the Cosmic Sea. Starlight glittered overhead, seawater flowed below, and the ruins left by the explosion lay beside them. It possessed a strange sort of poetry.
Apocalypse looked at the starry sky that the Rainbow Light had swept across and asked, "Thor, take a look. Are there fewer stars now?"
"Mm... mm... probably not."
Thor narrowed his eyes and stared for quite a while.
"You can't tell at all, can you?"
"I'm not Heimdall. Who keeps count of the stars in the sky all day for no reason?"
"Fine."
The two men collected themselves and returned to the palace to rest.
Now that the Rainbow Bridge had broken, there was no hope of returning to Earth anytime soon.
Lying on the bed, Apocalypse idly reflected on what had happened today and compared it with the plot he remembered.
The more he thought about it, the colder his heart became.
The Allfather was no simple man!
More than a thousand years ago, Odin had found Loki in a temple in Jotunheim. That alone had been bizarre.
He had stormed into someone else's stronghold, seen an infant of another race, suddenly been overwhelmed by maternal instincts, and brought the child home to raise him into adulthood. The whole thing was clearly not normal.
An Allfather who had conquered the Nine Realms had caused the deaths of countless civilians. How could he possibly be so softhearted?
Even if he had truly grown a conscience and brought a child home, he could have handed him to ordinary citizens to raise. Why raise him as a prince?
One had to remember that this was the son of Laufey, king of the Frost Giants.
Yet Laufey knew nothing about any of it.
Second, during Thor's first coronation, the Frost Giants had evaded Heimdall's watch and infiltrated the palace. Had no one suspected Loki?
It made sense that ordinary citizens, lacking evidence, would not dare question a prince. But Loki had been raised by Odin and Frigga with their own hands. Frigga might even have taught him skills such as illusion magic.
It was impossible that they did not know what their own son was capable of.
Yet there had been no word of any investigation into who had let the Frost Giants in.
Instead, Thor's exile had seemed excessively severe.
Your people from Jotunheim came over and caused a disturbance. My people from Asgard went over and caused one too. At most, that made them even. There was no reason to be so timid as to exile his own heir.
And by such a coincidence, Odin fainted and entered his sleep at that very moment, leaving Loki finally free to do whatever he wanted.
After that, he set a trap to kill Laufey, king of the Frost Giants, staging a son-killing-father drama.
Apocalypse had seen plenty of plots like that in his memories.
Then Loki had even intended to wipe out the entire Frost Giant Kingdom.
The queen was nowhere to be seen, and Odin had yet to awaken.
Had Thor not acted in time and decisively shattered the Rainbow Bridge, Loki might really have succeeded.
Once the Bifrost exploded, Odin, who had not awakened even with ice blades pressed against him, suddenly woke up.
The first thing he did after waking was not find water to drink, but leap out to save people. Was that a normal reaction for an old man on the verge of fading away?
Clearly, he had seen his biological son in danger and could no longer keep pretending.
In the original plot, Loki had let go.
But with the Allfather's strength, if he truly wanted to pull him up, how could someone just an arm's length away possibly be beyond his reach?
With Apocalypse's arrival, the Allfather had directly chosen to save Thor and Apocalypse, allowing Loki to fall into the void beneath the Cosmic Sea.
If all these doubts were coincidences, then they were coincidences too absurd to believe.
It could be said that the chance of the Frost Giants being wiped out in this whole affair had been as high as ninety-nine percent. The only variable had been Thor.
If Thor had returned from Earth a little later, or if he had not been so compassionate and hesitated just a little at the end, Asgard's greatest hidden threat—the Frost Giants—would have vanished completely from the universe.
Even in a world of gods, exterminating an entire race was an enormous evil.
And all that evil could have been placed on Loki alone. Then Thor could rule Asgard in the name of a benevolent king.
If this had been a scheme, it was far too terrifying.
As expected of an Allfather capable of ruling the Nine Realms!
Odin did not possess the power to foresee the future. If this scheme had begun a thousand years ago, then the only one who could have assisted him was Frigga.
Today, upon meeting him for the first time, Frigga had shown Apocalypse every courtesy.
At first, Apocalypse had felt rather pleased by her humility and thought it was an advantage of being a transmigrator.
But thinking about it now sent cold sweat down his back.
Though Frigga might not necessarily bear him ill will, she might still have plans for him.
The next day was the victory banquet.
The Frost Giant king had invaded and died in Asgard. No matter how one looked at it, Asgard was the victorious side. Holding a banquet to raise morale was very necessary.
Dressed in a set of medieval robes, Thor called Apocalypse over to admire the scenery before the banquet began.
It was daytime. Apocalypse looked at the sun in the sky and asked, "Is that sun real?"
"It is."
"Who built Asgard? That's insanely impressive."
A continent this vast could not possibly have formed naturally in the universe. Once matter reached a certain mass, gravity would cause it to collapse into a sphere.
That was why the most common natural celestial bodies in the universe were spherical.
To deliberately maintain a structure as a flat continent, while employing all sorts of unimaginable methods to create the Cosmic Sea, was a feat too grand to comprehend.
They had even captured a star and made it orbit Asgard in order to simulate the day and night produced by a planet's rotation.
This was the legendary level of catching stars and grasping moons!
Thor shrugged. "Some say Father built it during his prime. But I don't think he's that powerful."
Just as he spoke, Sif approached gracefully from afar.
Before you continue